


Wait a minute

by benevolent_bear



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Sad GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), its not george is just terrible with flirting cues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benevolent_bear/pseuds/benevolent_bear
Summary: The general premise was inspired by the song 'Wait a minute' by Willow.George keeps a diary, he always has. It makes it easier for him to stop his emotions from becoming too much to handle. One day he loses the diary and has no clue as to who's hands it's fallen into.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 505





	Wait a minute

**Author's Note:**

> A massive thank you to my beta readers. You were incredibly helpful and the feedback was phenomenal.
> 
> Also a big fuck you to bruh something or other. You know who you are.

Days at school always tended to drag on for George, no matter the company or the lessons he had the days always seemed never ending. He was good at school, he knew it, yet he still lacked the desire to remain there for eight hours a day, wishing instead that he was at home, playing video games with his friends. 

George stands in the canteen, black backpack swung over his hunched shoulders and the laces of his shoes entirely undone. He knew his appearance perfectly communicated his disdain at being caged between these four walls. A mandatory sentence under the guise of relaxation in the midst of a day of hard work. He tried to stay tuned in to whatever conversation the people he stood in line with were having but his resentful mind refused to allow anything but a stream of white noise in. 

He lazily scanned the canteen for a familiar set of eyes, knowing they would be among the mass of chattering personalities. He easily spotted him, sat with a few friendly faces but he seemed to be paying them no mind. Tired green eyes bore into George’s own brown ones. Even across the room it still felt like Clay’s eyes always found their way to him. He smiled softly at the boy before turning away, knowing the inevitable pink twinge was already making its way onto his face. He never could stare at Clay too long, his need to memorise each feature too grand.

“Gogy, you coming?” Nick’s voice snapped him from his trance, causing him to notice the line's progression, it was now their turn to get food. 

The food looked as bland and boring as it always did. The school’s lunch staff were nothing but lovely and seemed just as resentful of the food as the students did. School restrictions didn’t allow them to make the food they undoubtedly had the potential to make. George greets the lunch staff with a polite ‘hello’, gratefully taking the food they had to offer even if it was undoubtedly going to make its way into the bin. 

He trudges his way behind his friends to where he knows those green eyes are waiting for him, his seat reserved right by his side where it always had been. George slides silently into his spot, a huff escaping his lips as he makes impact. Clay’s shoulder nudges into his own, encouraging the boy to look up to him. 

“You good?” He asks, concern laced in his voice and the crinkling between his brows. George nods sleepily, resting his head on Clay’s shoulder with his eyes closed. 

“Are you going to be awake enough to come to mine later?” Clay teased, patting George’s head with his free arm. He scoffs, swatting the hand away irritated by the action. 

“Oi! No gay shit at the table.” An unmistakable voice screeches out, causing George to frown and move to pull away from Clay. 

Clay holds his head in place, refusing to let him move away. “Shut it gayinnit. Who let the middle schoolers in here?” He retaliated, undoubtedly glaring at the young blonde. 

“Oi wanker! I’m a freshman.” Tommy’s trainers scraped piercingly on the flooring as he stomped his feet in defiance. George chuckled as Tommy’s British accent got thicker as his anger peaked, raising a few octaves too. 

A thump can be heard as a hand undoubtedly comes down on the back of Tommy’s head. “Calm it Tommy, let the homos live.” Wilbur was always the one to calm Tommy, he seemed to be the only one the excitable teen would listen to other than Toby. 

“We’re not homos.” George grumbled, eyes still shut tight as he kicked his foot out in the direction of where Wilbur sat.

“They’re homies.” Karl chimed in cheerily.

“Yeah just like me and Karl.” Nick snickered.

George sighed. “I wish I had better friends.” 

“Nah, you love us.” Clay teased, his arm sliding to loosely sit around George’s waist in a way that made him feel so safe.

_ You, maybe.  _ George thinks to himself, finally peeling himself away from Clay’s side. 

\-----

George always felt comfortable in Clay’s home. His mother adored him and never made him feel anything less than welcome, giving him a hug upon entry and offers of endless food. It was no different this time when he walked through the doors, Clay called out a hello to his mother who swept out of the living room, engulfing her son in her arms before moving on to George. 

The way she treated him made him wonder what it would be like to be an actual member of the family, the lover on Clay’s arm that he brings home every Christmas who he’s proud to introduce to his family. To George, there was no use in mulling over fantasies of what will never be but when he was in Clay’s mother’s arms it seemed impossible to not let his mind wander just a little. 

“We’ll be in my room.” Clay informs his mum, tugging George’s arm. “C’mon George, I finally got that plug in working.” George is helpless but to do whatever Clay wants, mindlessly following him the way he knew he would to the ends of the earth. George wonders if he has the love-struck expression on his face that Nick always does when he looks at Karl. Clay’s hand sits on George’s wrist like a fiery vice that does nothing but keep him grounded, trapping him in the bounds of calloused skin against the smoothness of his own arm. 

——

Clay drops George’s arm the moment they’re in the familiar bedroom. The first time George had been in there he’d felt uncomfortable and unsure of where to sit but by now he knows to throw himself onto Clay’s bed, the other totally familiarised with the elders behaviour. He lays atop Clay’s sheets, unable to stop himself from breathing in the thick oaky scent that is so purely Clay which has settled into the fibres of the sheets. 

“I’m going to shower, just lay there or some shit, I don’t need you messing with my papers like last time.” George hums in acknowledgement, not even bothering to life his head from the bed he finds himself face down in. 

It is only after he hears Clay’s shower click on that he removes his face from its comfortable position. He reaches for his backpack, unzipping the front pocket to tug out an A5 leather bound book. His diary. The only place where his thoughts were allowed to be immortalised. George opens the book to a blank page and finds a pen to begin writing the thoughts that have come to him throughout the day. 

_ I find myself drowning in him, in the ways he knows me inside and out. Just one sharp look from him has each and every wall I have ever built tumbling down, crumbling to his feet in a pathetic attempt to appease him. I am a fool to my emotions that so desperately crave his validation. His words are the riptide in the ocean of him I am drowning in. They grab a hold of me so harshly and deprive me of the oxygen I so desperately need to breathe. He is everything that is blue. The comfort of a clear sky, the infiniteness of the ocean, the softness of my favourite hoodie (the one that used to be his). He is blue and oh how I am obsessed with the colour blue.  _

George hears the shower switch off and hurries to hide the diary in any way that he can. The door swings open to reveal a wet haired Clay, running the towel through his biscuit hued locks. Clay looks at George's stiff nature questioningly but doesn’t push it any further, instead walking to his PC and powering it up.  __

“C'mon Gogy, I wanna show you what I did.” Clay pulled out his desk chair, patting the seat as an indication that he wanted George to sit down in it. He smiles, pulling himself off of the bed. 

“You just want me to be proud of you.” He teases, plopping down into the comfortable chair. 

\-----

George stood rifling through stacked paperwork that sat atop his desk, his desperation ruining the perfectly organised worksheets. His heartbeat palpitating as laboured breaths fell from cherry bitten lips. It was missing. His diary. The one thing that held all of his secrets, the thoughts he'd never let himself entertain out loud.

Frustrated hands fly up to neat hair, his fingers slipping through chocolate sheets carelessly, mussing the previously pristine strands between his fingertips. He lets out strings of curses, searching through the same desk drawer for what had to be the third time. His frustration causes bitter tears to well in the corners of his eyes. He pulls his bottom lip between his lips in an attempt to keep them from falling. 

His skin burns and bones sit uncomfortably under his skin at the thought of anyone else's hands being on the cherished item. George did his best to recall where he had it last, but he couldn't pinpoint it. He always carried the leather-bound diary in his bag, just in case any important thought sprung on him. 

He pivots on his feet, looking at his room which was now left in disarray. Months worth of paperwork that was once meticulously organised now featured creased corners and unaligned edges, only adding to George’s seething. 

George continued to rifle through drawers and bags, praying he had left it somewhere in his room, whether it was under sheets of paper or fallen between the bindings of a work folder. 

He soon gave up, collapsing onto his bed with a loud groan of distress twinned with mournful acceptance of its disappearance. George's phone vibrated in his pocket, tearing him out of his pitiful state. The noise settled uncomfortably in his head, planting a seed or irritation is his stomach. He pulled the device from his pocket and looked to the screen to see it was his two best friends, Nick and Clay, trying to pull him into a call on Discord. The irritation faded instantaneously, relieved to see it was only them. George really wasn't in the mood to talk to them but knew they would worry if he didn't pick up. He regretfully swipes to answer the call and then pulls the device to his ear. 

"George!" The voice of his two friends chorus through the receiver. As much as George would refute it if asked, his mood did improve just at the sound of his friends’ voices.

"Hey, guys." George did his best to keep his distress out of his tone but knew he was terrible at masking his emotions. Especially to Nick and Clay, the two could read him like an open book. book. Fuck, his diary. His improved mood worsened again. George's heart dropped into his stomach, twisting uncomfortably as anxiety set in faster than fear itself manifests under the surface. 

"You okay George?" Clay asks, his worry evident in his voice. George gnaws at his already bitten raw lips, feeling small waves of pain pour over him. 

"Yeah, I've just lost something that means a lot to me." He confesses, curling in on himself on his bed, wrapping the arm not holding the phone to his ear around his knees, clutching himself tightly. It always did him well to feel small, safer in a tighter space when he felt like nothing could reach him. 

"What was it?" Nick questions curiously, he always had a habit of being a bit nosy, he never meant it in bad taste. Simply wishing the best for his friends. 

"Uhm, just my diary." George’s tone was nonchalant but inside he was panicking, expecting the boys to laugh at his admission to owning a diary but neither went to make a single comment on it. 

"Ooh, is it full of all your dirty secrets?" Nick teases lightheartedly, a familiar lilt in his voice. 

George forces out a breath of laughter. "Something like that." Nick wasn't wrong. The secrets did make him feel dirty. He had never spoken a word of them to anyone. The book detailed private thoughts about his home life, his sexuality and worse than that, the feelings for Clay he had so desperately kept locked away in his diary for the past two years. 

"Maybe you left it in your locker at school or something," Nick suggested, undoubtedly trying to get George to be optimistic. 

"Yeah, I guess. I'll find out on Monday." He sighs, knowing it most likely won't be there and that someone undoubtedly has a hold of the thoughts that linger in the deep recesses of his mind. 

"Clay, are you still there?" George hadn't even noticed Clay's absence from the conversation, too busy with the erratic buzzing of his mind. 

"What?” Clay sounded off, but neither of them mentioned it. “Oh, yeah, I'm here." George thought he could have been distracted by something in his room. The boy had a habit of spacing out in key moments. 

"Anyway George, get on Minecraft! Clay just bought a server!" Nick excitedly yelled. 

George hesitated for a moment, maybe playing minecraft with his friends would be a good distraction. The fogginess of his mind still remained, clouding any possibility of an intelligent thought slipping through. "No thanks guys, I think I'm going to take a nap.” George rolled onto his back, staring blankly at stark white paint of his ceiling 

“Awh, okay. Have a nice nap.” The slight disappointment in Nick’s voice caused a pang of guilt in George’s heart but he didn’t want to stay around and bring the mood down with his incessant worrying. 

“We’ll talk later, yeah George?” Clay’s hopeful tone called for a blush to paint George’s pale cheeks, reminding him of the secrets he was so desperate to keep hidden. 

“Of course Clay.” The fondness in his voice was unmistakable, there was no doubt that a teasing message from Nick would be left in his inbox. He silently cursed himself for his softness around the younger lad, one day it was going to cause issues he’s not ready to deal with. 

“Great, have a nice nap Gogy.” Clay’s voice was sickeningly sweet, George a hopeless bee to its alluring sugary quality. 

“Thanks, see you guys later.” He hung up with a sigh, closing his eyes tight, overwhelmed by the slight light that fluttered in from beneath the crack of his door and the gentle moonbeams that graced the room. It had always been that way, when George felt bitter at the world it was best for him to see as little of it as possible. To get lost in his mind and the dangers that linger. 

It’s moments like these that he would turn to his diary and trip over the right way to say that existence was overwhelming. His thoughts slip to Clay, the way his voice sounded as he was wishing George well. It had almost sounded as fond as George’s own had. He couldn’t let himself entertain the thought as getting his hopes up only ensured heartbreak George wasn’t prepared to face. Despite his best efforts, George fell asleep this way, Clay the last lingering thought on his mind. 

\------

George’s break into consciousness leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. As he chews on the cotton of his mouth he immediately thinks to Clay and his promise to call. He blinks his tired eyes, blindly bringing a hand to his face and dragging it lazily across the soft skin. Sleep has left his face stiff and tight in an uncomfortable way. George picks his phone up from its position tangled with his sheets, not even bothering to check the time before calling Clay.

“Hello?” Clay’s voice was groggy and sounded thick from sleep. 

George immediately felt a pang of guilt in his heart at disturbing Clay. “Oh, sorry. Were you asleep?”

“Yeah, it's like three AM.” Clay chuckled deep and rough, the gravely edge to it struck George to his core, awakening the seed of attraction from where it rested in the back of his mind. 

“Shit. I’m sorry I just woke up.” He sat up in his bed, anxious fingers clutching at the soft fabric of his t-shirt above where his racing heart thumped tirelessly against his rib-cage. 

“It’s fine George don’t worry.” Clay dismisses easily. “I’ll always answer the phone when it’s you.”

Clay’s words make his heart beat impossibly faster. He couldn’t understand how it was so easy for Clay to say these things. The words that sat at the tip of his own tongue but burned like acid, forbidding him to speak them. “Really?” The word barely above a whisper. 

“Of course, you’d do the same for me.” Once again, the words are so casual as if they mean nothing to him but to George these words will linger in the back of his mind for days afterwards. 

“I would.” He confesses, the filter from his brain to mouth lost somewhere in his hours of sleep. 

They sit in silence for a moment and George is left to breathe in the weight of his admission. The night is calm, it’s easy silence harshly contrasting the loudness of his mind. Cogs of his brain whirring in an effort to decipher whether his words had frightened Clay. In the darkness George can make out where his desk resides and stares at the spot where he knows a framed photo of himself, Clay and Nick has been since the desk’s construction. He’s comforted by the knowledge of its presence, it’s familiar in what unfamiliar territory he is pushing himself into. 

“You’re a bit less filtered tonight aren’t you?” Clay's voice comes through the receiver and George is powerless to feel nothing but relief. His tone is teasing in a way that feels so normal but there’s an edge to his tone that could be the tiredness but George longed for it to be more than that.

“Call it the exhaustion.” George chuckles dryly. “I can’t be bothered to pretend I feel differently than I actually do tonight.”

George hears shuffling through the phone and presumes it’s Clay sitting up in his bed. “How do you actually feel?” He’s closer to the microphone now, voice impossibly softer and so very curious. 

“You know, like the sound of your voice doesn’t set my soul aflame.” These were the words. The ones that haunted his dreams. Now off of his tongue and impossible to take back. 

“Oh.” Clay sounds taken aback but not disgusted, a happy lilt to his voice that George hadn’t been expecting. 

  
“Sorry. That was a bit upfront.” He apologises anyway, still afraid that they were unwelcome. 

“Don’t apologise, I like this side of you.” Clay’s tone is adoring in a way it gets whenever he speaks of family, soft with fondness spilling out from the seams. 

“The stupid brash side?” George picks at the hem of his trouser leg, a pink on his pale cheeks that makes him glad he’s alone. 

“The side that doesn’t seem afraid to love.” The words make George’s skin prickle, hairs raising to their very tip-toes in defiance. 

“I’m not afraid to love you.” The pause was pregnant, sitting between them like a thick sheet of rain too vicious to incur. “I’m afraid of you not loving me back.” He finally whispers. 

Clay doesn’t respond and the two sit there for moments that feel like hours before George whispers out a goodnight, hanging up the phone. He throws the device to the floor, as if merely touching the device set his hand aflame. 

He didn’t sleep again that night. Too caught up in his own misery. 

\------ 

When Monday morning rolled around George wasn’t feeling much better. Clay seemed to have been ignoring him the entirety of Sunday and it settled uneasily in his stomach. He was worried that the conversation had irrevocably ruined their friendship and that George was going to have to go find new friends, knowing he was the one that made things weird. 

He trudged through the front doors, making his way quickly to his locker with his head down. George was well aware that whoever had his diary could have spread the knowledge around the school and that eyes could be following his every movement. He didn’t want to risk it. He looked up when he reached his locker, seeing a familiar green sweatered man leaning against the front of his locker, an all too familiar leather bound book in his hands. 

George’s heart dropped immediately. He spun on his heels, already prepared to race back out of the front doors. 

“George! Wait!” Clay’s voice called out after him, making him freeze on the spot. Clay’s hand landed on his shoulder, turning the shorter to be facing the smiling face of his best friend. Would he still be his best friend after this?

“You left your diary at my house.” Clay extended the diary to George. He raised his hand to grasp it but it was pulled back before he had the chance. “I read those pages. You really love me, huh, baby?” George flushed red, snatching the book from between Clay’s fingertips, muttering out a thanks before rushing towards a bathroom, the book clutched to his chest. 

He knew how he felt and was now calling him ‘baby’ in order to tease him. Could Clay be so cruel? He had always been one to flirt with George jokingly but he wasn’t convinced Clay would ever make a mockery of how he truly felt. No matter if he returned the feelings or not. 

Tears welled in his eyes as he slammed his back against a bathroom stall door, of all the people’s hands his diary could have fallen into, why did it have to be his? He pulled the book from where he had tucked it into his chest and undid the loose bow which held it closed. 

George flicked to the page that Clay had bookmarked and read the words he had scribbled down onto the page. 

_I_ _n inexplicable ways, I have let myself fall for the one thing forbidden to me. The one person who can set alight my heart dressed as an unattainable man. His bright eyes always find their way to my soul, his sweet mind drowning me with each caring word. His horrid laughter was nothing but endearing, swallowing me up and suffocating me in each breathy hiss. Large hands always catch my eye, I long to entangle them with my own, the desire screaming out to me each and every time I am by his side_. _Clay. Why must he plague my mind the way he does? Each night when I sleep it is his voice I dream of, whispering those words I long to hear._ _I don’t think I’m quite ready for my heart to be completely laid bare to him, for Clay to do with it what he will, stomp on it or hold it close to his own. The loss is too great for me to risk. So I'll sit, the way I always have, faithful by his side as he undoubtedly falls for a woman deserving of his love. Something I will never be._

The words he used to cherish sweetly now burned bitterly as he read them. His own handwriting dancing mockingly across the page. Tears fell from his eyes, splashing against the page of his diary. Did he bookmark this page to taunt him?

George’s eyes fall on the bottom of the page where a familiar scrawl paints the page. “Turn to the back page.” George reads under his breath. He does as instructed and opens up the very last page of the diary, seeing Clay had written his own note inside. 

**_I thought by now I knew everything there was to know about you and yet you somehow still manage to surprise me. These feelings you’ve withheld from me are written with shame and it aches me to read them. I wish you could be proud in the ways that you love me. I know that’s not in your nature. I can predict exactly how you’ll react when I hand you this back. I bet you won’t even look me in the eyes, opting to hide away rather than deal with what I might have to say. If you had stayed you’d know that I feel the same. That whilst you’ve been loving me in secret I’ve been doing just the same. Completely enamoured by everything you have to offer. You’re the sweetness in May and the comfort of December. I long to hold your hand just the way you do mine. I only pray that you can believe me because I don’t think I can go another day without your hand in mine now that I know you want the same thing._ **

George isn’t quite sure how to respond to the fact that the person he is in love with feels the same way. A knock on his bathroom stool brings with it the knowledge that he’s going to have to confront the issue sooner than he wants to. 

“George? Can you come out?” Clay’s voice is sickeningly sweet again, in that way that makes George powerless but to do what he’s asked of him. With his mind seething with resentment, he pulls open the door, the back of his hand wiping at wet eyes. 

“Oh Georgie.” The sympathetic lilt in Clay’s voice is all it takes for the shorter to throw himself into Clay’s arms, clinging onto him tightly. Clay staggers but easily takes George’s weight, keeping the boy close to his chest. “You’re such a little baby.” Clay coos, pressing his mouth to the top of George’s head.

“M’ not a baby.” George pouts, leaning back to look up at Clay’s smiling face. 

“My baby.” He corrects, revelling in the way that George’s cheeks set aflame. 

“Yours?” He asks coyly. 

“Unfortunately so.” George snorts, burying his face in Clay’s chest. 

“Wouldn’t want to be anything else.” He murmurs into the fabric, words slightly muffled. 

“I’m going to have to get used to this.” Clay sighs, rubbing George’s back affectionately. 

“To what?” George looks back up to Clay, his eyes large and irrefutably fond. 

“The you who’s not afraid of me not loving them back.” He grins, leaning down to brush the tip of his nose against George’s. 

“I still think you’re an idiot.” George snickers, beginning to play with Clay’s hoodie strings, leaving the diary to be trapped between their two chests. 

Clay scoffs. “Wow and here I was about to kiss you.” He places George back onto the floor, the diary clattering to the floor as he did so. 

“Wait, what?” George fish mouthed, in shock as he watched Clay turn to leave. “Come back! I want a kiss.” He whines, grabbing a hold of Clay’s sleeve. Clay wheezes, turning back to the pouting boy. 

“Only because I’ve been waiting so long.” Clay steps back into George’s space, cupping him gently by the jaw, an affectionate thumb dragging across the soft skin. George waits patiently, his foot tapping nervously against the tile floor. Their lips meet and it’s everything George had hoped it to be. Soft lips against his own, flooding his body with a warmth as bright as the summer sun itself. 

They part, matching grins set on love-stricken features. “I’m so stuck on you George, I can’t believe you didn’t see it.” Clay’s laugh was airy as if every bit of weight had been taken off of his shoulders. 

“I guess I was too busy trying to hide my feelings to notice yours.” He shrugged, looking down to his feet.

Clay tilted George’s head up to face him with a gentle touch of his hand. “Writing them in a book isn’t the best hiding method.” Clay teased earning a hard shove to his shoulder. “Hey!” He exclaimed, bringing his hand to the area of impact protectively. 

“You deserved that.” George grumbled, rolling his eyes fondly. 

Clay smiles, “Good to know nothing’s going to change.” George sticks out his tongue at him before being swept into another gentle kiss. 


End file.
